Carrying an even bigger gun
Several months ago I began carrying a Taurus Millennium Pro 9mm as my primary concealed handgun. Until then I’d carried either a H&K P7 PSP or a Kel-Tek P3AT, neither of which held more than 8 rounds total. The Taurus packed 13 9mm rounds into a small, yet managable pistol, and was only about $325 from Academy, so I took a chance.
The Millennium was nice. I never had a failure in it, the gun felt sturdy, and it concealed well. It even had the manual safety I prefer in my handguns. I’ve stopped carrying it, though, because I’ve lost faith in the Taurus pistols. The 24/7 I owned in 9mm was nothing but trouble. When I shot for my CHL renewal in November I had two failures within 50 rounds, both of them due to the weak striker. Even though the Taurus handguns offer a unique DA/SA trigger, I just can’t accept a pistol with a poor striker or hammer. Both of the Taurus pistols I used to own are now gone, and I’ve moved on…
Directly to a Glock 19. I picked it up yesterday, along with a set of Trijicon 3-dot sights and a Don Hume OWB holster. I’m going to see if I can pack this thing daily on my hip under an unucked shirt and get away with it. I’m afraid the length of the Glock will show when I sit, so I’m likely to switch to another IWB holster eventually. If I can get away with it outside, though, I’m going to stick with it for comfort.
Walking out the door right now I’m carrying 16 rounds without the need for a spare magazine. A year ago I only carried 14 with the extra magazine.
I can’t tell you any one reason why I want to carry more rounds on my person. Something about the world just concerns me – like we’re right on the edge of something breaking. We live within a system permanently stretched to its limits. Nothing is ever humming along on an even keel. We’ve learned to accept panic and overcrowding as a way of life, but its unnatural. We all know something is wrong. Everyone is at that same precipice, waiting for something to break, inside them or outside.
You just can’t carry enough bullets. People break when they’re stretched, and we’re still a long way from the bottom of where this broken, irresponsible, and irrational federal government construct is going to take us. People are going to break because we’re all-in, as a society, as an economy, and as a nation. We’ve put our collective futures into the hands of the few, and they’ve been failing us egregiously for a hundred consecutive years. Sooner or later they’re going to break someone near you and I, and whether or not we’re ready to deal with it is a matter we all have to decide for ourselves.
I’ve never felt so prepared. The Glock 19 is clearly an unapologetic tool for the discriminating carrier. It’s not going to fail at critical moments, is not going to slow you down with extra buttons or levers, and is going to destroy whatever is in front of it when the trigger is pulled, whether you like it or not. It’s a dangerous gun in the wrong hands, and according to statistics is also a dangerous gun in trained hands. Without a good holster the threat of self-inflicted gunshot wounds from a Glock is significant, so it is certainly not a firearm to be treated with anything other than absolute reverence. When the time is right it’s a gun that can be counted on.
Being prepared feels good today.
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